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Sexuality and the Law Commons

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William & Mary Law School

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

United States Constitution 1st Amendment

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Sexuality and the Law

Marriage Mandates: Compelled Disclosures Of Race, Sex, And Gender Data In Marriage Licensing Schemes, Mikaela A. Phillips May 2021

Marriage Mandates: Compelled Disclosures Of Race, Sex, And Gender Data In Marriage Licensing Schemes, Mikaela A. Phillips

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Note argues that mandatory disclosures of personal information—specifically race, sex, and gender—on a marriage license application constitute compelled speech under the First Amendment and should be subject to heightened scrutiny. Disclosing one’s race, sex, or gender on a marriage license application is an affirmative act, and individuals may wish to have their identity remain anonymous. These mandatory disclosures send a message that this information is still relevant to marriage regulation. Neither race nor gender is based in science; rather they are historical and social constructs created to uphold a system of white supremacy and heteronormativity. Thus, such statements are …


The First Amendment And The Roots Of Lgbt Rights Law: Censorship In The Early Homophile Era, 1958-1962, Jason M. Shepard Jul 2020

The First Amendment And The Roots Of Lgbt Rights Law: Censorship In The Early Homophile Era, 1958-1962, Jason M. Shepard

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Long before substantive due process and equal protection extended constitutional rights to homosexuals under the Fourteenth Amendment, in three landmark decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States, First Amendment law was both a weapon and shield in the expansion of LGBT rights. This Article examines constitutional law and “gaylaw” from the perspective of its beginning, through case studies of One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958), Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield (1958), and Manual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day (1962). In protecting free press rights of sexual minorities to use the U.S. mail for mass communications, the Warren Court’s liberalization of …


Conversion Therapy And Free Speech: A Doctrinal And Theoretical First Amendment Analysis, Clay Calvert, Kara Carnley, Brittany Link, Linda Riedmann May 2014

Conversion Therapy And Free Speech: A Doctrinal And Theoretical First Amendment Analysis, Clay Calvert, Kara Carnley, Brittany Link, Linda Riedmann

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article analyzes, from both a doctrinal and theoretical perspective, the First Amendment speech interests at stake before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Welch v. Brown and Pickup v. Brown. Those cases pivot on a controversial California law banning mental health providers from performing sexual orientation change efforts (also known as conversion therapy) on minors. Two district court judges reached radically different conclusions about the First Amendment questions. The Article explores how a trio of recent Supreme Court decisions involving seemingly disparate factual scenarios—Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, United States v. Alvarez and Gonzales v. …